A Kigo Carol: Second Edition
by eoraptor
Summary: A reinterpretation of a holiday classic. A sour, morose woman must learn to change her ways in the face of the holiday season, or be forever dammed. Featuring your favorite KP characters in new roles!
1. Chapter 1

_**A Kigo Carol**_

_By Eoraptor_

_AN: Kim Possible belongs to Disney, "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens. I own nothing involved here save for my laptop, the name "Debbie Horowitz," and some grammar and original names.  
_

_Second edition (or director's cut if you prefer) of my "Christmas Carol" Kim Possible kigo fiction from 2008  
_

- - - - - -

"But Miss Horowitz… It's Christmas?!" the blonde young man with the freckled face bemoaned as he was shoved roughly into his seat. He rubbed at the back of his neck uncertainly, trying to think up a new argument.

"And you're Jewish! I don't want to hear another word on the issue! I've already allowed you to put up that Yahweh-forsaken wreath on the front door. That should be more than enough holiday tolerance. Now finish those numbers."

"This tanks. What a green skinned Grinch…"

"I heard that! Kiss your bonus good bye for that bit of insubordination." The elegantly dressed woman snorted angrily. She ran a hand through long, raven hair and let out a breath. Just as she was about to begin again, the door to the brokerage office chimed.

She turned, hoping it would be one of her clients, but was disappointed to find her oaf of a brother lugging in a dead conifer by the root ball.

"Merry Christmas sis! And Happy Hanukkah Ronald! Where shall I put this lovely Scotch Pine?" The giant man with the blue-black hair grinned charmingly and dusted his sap coated hands off on his blue flannel shirt.

"Out back in the recycling bin with the rest of the dead trees, Harold." Deborah snorted again. "I told you not to bring that damned religious symbolism round here to offend my clients. Not to mention the environmentalists!"

"But Sis! It's tradition!" He pled, his sapphire eyes growing large and watery as he held out his hands.

"Bah, stuff it!" She growled, holding one delicately manicured hand up in threat. She didn't need to do more than raise her hand, at this point in her life, to get her point across. Long gone were the days when she actually needed to ignite.

With a heaving sigh, Harold spun the tree around in his grasp and hurled all ten feet of it through the door and out into the dumpster. Turning back to his sister, he again wiped off his hands. "Can we at least count on you at dinner, Debby?"

"Why? Need someone to cook for you bunch of doofuses?" She rolled her emerald eyes and stared at the mess of needles the now-absent tree had left. "Buzz off, glory boy. I got plans."

After a moment of silently pleading with his eyes, Harold let out a defeated breath and turned to go, "Ronald, I do hope that you and yours have a lovely holiday at least."

"Oh, sure will big guy! They're even letting Tiffany out of the hospital tomorrow!" The blonde man beamed and spun a picture frame around from his cubicle. It showed himself, an equally blonde woman, and a small girl, too small if one knew her actual age; in a Summery setting, despite the little girl's wearing a large bandage between the halves of her pixie scout swim suit.

"Good man! Have they determined what is cau-,"

"Ahbubububu!" the pale woman in the green business dress cut off the man-mountain, "Enough of that! And enough of you! Out out out…"

"And as for you…" She turned back on Mister Stoppable with an imperious glare, "You shouldn't even be getting tomorrow off, it's not your holiday after all. However… if it will save me listening to your pedantic whining about missing Snowman Hank, you may have the day off. But fail to appear on the twenty sixth, and consider yourself docked a day's wages."

Ron resisted the urge to glomp his employer, and contented himself to wiggling in his seat happily for the next several minutes. Finally he managed to settle back down to the actuarial tasks assigned to him and resumed with the numbers work, occasionally glancing at his picture.

As the time to close up the office approached, Miss Horowitz was drawing on her long green trench coat when the door chimed once more. Again dreaming of holiday bonus pay from a Client, she came out to the lobby with her most charming face on, only to see two more annoyances.

"Heya sis,"

"We were hoping you'd,"

"Give to the Turning Point,"

"This year."

The twin boys, dressed in matching red sweatshirts and black pants, grinned impossibly large and held out Miss Horowitz's checkbook, snuck from Ron's oh-so-willing hands. If possible, their smiles actually seemed to brighten the room.

"After all,"

"These women,"

"and their kids,"

"don't have anywhere,"

"to go or anything,"

"to call their own!"

They again parroted. Their burgundy eyes practically glistened with unshed tears as they begged charity for the woman's shelter.

"Bah, Stuff it." She snorted derisively, "Those chicks couldn't help themselves, why the heck should I be bothered to?! Now, if they want a gun to solve their problems, we can talk funding and representation."

The boys frowned and ducked their heads in unison. They looked up, positively crestfallen as they wrung their hands.

"Violence is never then answer, Sis."

"They made the first important steps by getting out."

Deborah made a shushing motion with her fingers, voicing her feelings on the bleeding hearts before her and what they thought was proper behavior for women being beaten at this time of year. "You've hit me up four times already this year… Ask me again, and I'll buy that damned building and burn it to the ground. Got it?"

She stamped her foot in the boys' direction, and they dutifully scurried off in fear of the wrath of the business woman.

"Stoppable! I'm leaving. Lock up when you're done and make damned sure to turn out the lights, I'm not paying to illuminate an empty office for two days!" Turning with a flourish, the pale woman strode out of the office, long coat swaying like a royal cloak behind her.

"Christmas! Bah, Stuff It!"

- - - - - -

Once free of her offices, Debora Horowitz freed her long black hair from its headband and let out a ragged breath. She took summoned a private car to take her home to her building. Yes, it was her building. She owned it, and had one by one removed the other tenants from the building, until she alone resided in the penthouse. She punched in the code to the building's front door, and reached for the handle to the great glass edifice. Suddenly, the powerful woman yanked her hand away in shock and she clutched herself, shaking her head.

For just a moment, her reflection in the glass seemed to have taken on a bluish tinge and glared at her. It must have been a passing blue truck or something, combined with an exhausted imagination. Taking a deep breath, the emerald skinned woman shook off the delusion and entered the building. She mounted the stairs to the elevator landing, and sighed as she inserted her key for the penthouse elevator.

She was about to touch the polished brass plate and button to call the lift when her hand recoiled. It was as though the button was surrounded by an intensely cold mass of air, the button itself appearing frosted. The pale woman shook her hand violently to clear the sensation and frowned at the brass plaque. She was tempted to use her hidden ability to warm the button, but when she inched her finger to the brass key again, the wave of cold air was absent and the frost gone.

Scowling, she jammed the hard brass call and tapped her heel clad foot, awaiting the lift. As it descended, she was irked by the noise it made in the shaft; a sort of clanging of chains and grinding of metal.

"Great, have to call the damned technician now. And on a fucking holiday…! that'll cost a fortune. Well, maybe after the first of the year. It's only ten stories after all."

She was about to start for the stairs when the mirrored elevator doors slid open with a ding. Giving the interior of the lift an arch look, she stepped inside after a moment and sighed, letting out a breath. Obviously the stress of the season and end of year filings were beginning to really get to her.

The lift ascended without further noise or incident to the penthouse. Stepping out at the top floor, Miss Horowitz passed her private gymnasium. She paused a moment. Her old Team Go uniform seemed to be… filled out? Must be the ventilation system causing it to swing on its hanger where it was placed as a memento against the wall. Tricks of the light were a funny thing, she mused to herself.

With a sigh, she moved on to the door to her apartment; if the two upper stories of the building that constituted her residence could be called that. She reached for the doorknob, and jumped back in shock. The knob was not polished brass, but a ghoulish bl-

"No… nononono! Damn it, Horowitz! Get a grip on yourself." She shook her head furiously, her emerald eyes squeezed shut tightly. After a moment, she opened her eyes again and glared at the knob. It was again a cool brass spheroid, not a freakish warped face.

With some small trepidation, she wrapped her fingers around the knob and gave it a twist. It yielded under her grasp and turned as a proper knob should. She entered her apartment and for the next two hours, from ten PM to midnight, drank herself into unconsciousness with aid of scotch, shedding the stressors of work and the holidays for being insensate and chemically relaxed.

Fate, however, had other plans. Deborah Horowitz, owner of She Go Brokerage House, was rudely awoken as every pane of glass in her tenth story penthouse began rattling. The pale woman turned truly green as a form began to appear before her, materializing out of the mists that had somehow poured in under every door.

Rolling off of the couch and fighting off the effects of alcohol, the emerald eyed woman fled the forming apparition and ran to the only place that had no windows, her bedroom. She slammed and bolted the strong and ancient oak door and dove for her bed. There she dragged out her gun from beneath the rearmost bedpost in a panic. She chambered it and spun, facing the door, both manicured hands trembling faintly.

A head poked through the door, not in the traditional manner, but literally right through the heavy hundred-year old paneling. "_Shegoooooooooooooo_…."

**BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM

* * *

**

_**AN: **Chapter one, several more to come before the twenty fifth… Please follow the three R's:** Read, Review, and Reccomend  
**_


	2. Chapter 2

_**A Kigo Carol**_

_By Eoraptor_

_AN: Kim Possible to Disney, "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens. Inspired by a challenge on KP Slash Haven. Rated "T" Please **Read, Review, and Recommend.**  
_

- - - - - -

The wood splintered and cratered, right through the head of the apparition that was peering through it. Multiple large holes were bored into the hundred year old oaken door by her side arm before it was spent of its ammunition.

"Really Shego… How is that any way to greet an old friend? Honestly?" The figure stepped fully through, transcending the door, only to turn and examine it as it dusted itself off, "And since when do you use a gun?"

Miss Horowitz stared at the apparition as it turned again to face her. Without preface, she gave the answer almost conversationally, "Since it's easier to explain to the cops why I shot the burglar than why I burned him alive…"

The figure nodded after considering this, seeming to be satisfied. He was dressed as Deborah remembered him in life, if this specter truly was who he appeared to be. Clad in an expensive suit with the gaudy blue blazer he had always favoured, paired with black slacks and black shoes that matched his beady black eyes. Now, however, the suit was bedraggled, smeared with unidentifiable stains and small frays. Worse still, the clanking and gangling noise she had heard in the elevator was now explained.

The specter's entire body was looped and trussed in copious amounts of chains, as well as what appeared to be power cords, computer cables, and the occasional bit of wire conduit pipe clattering back and forth. As the Spirit stepped fully into the room the chains and wires followed, eventually terminating in no less than three cell phones and one laptop computer, all spectral in nature, tugging their way through the door behind him.

The ghostly face was pale and blue in death, but then again, that was quite normal, as it was this shade in life. That was how she had come into the employ of Mister Drew Theodore Paul Lipsky, Ph.D RRA, and a fair list of other acronyms. After she had left her brothers and their civil service organization, "Team Go," for something more personally and financially fulfilling; she had been hired by the frantic business magnate because of their shared malady, bizarre skin pigmentation.

The apparently deceased CEO of Drakken Financial, her mentor, sniffed a bit and drew the detritus of electronics and chains to himself before clearing his throat. "Shego… You're looking rather well. Business has been good to you."

Still shaking ever so slightly, the smoking pistol useless in her hands, she shrugged nervously, "Business is Business. But you look a bit worse the wear, Doc."

"Yes… and that's why I've come… Shego you've been-,"

"You're dead five years and you decide to just drop by now? Gah, typical Mister Lipsky… never could keep a sched-,"

"_**SILENCE!**_" The bed and furnishings in the well appointed bedroom rattled and wavered. Quite a trick considering they were of the same solid antique oak as the door, and that the nightstand alone weighed sixty pounds.

The shocked business maven looked around in a panic, wondering if this was more supernatural set dressing, or if the New Madrid fault had finally let loose on top of her spectral visitation.

"Shego, these chains and obstructions are signs of my punishment…" The spirit of Lipsky continued after he was certain he had got her attention, "Each link in the chains forged of a harsh word, a thoughtless deed. Each cable a bond marking my selfish obsessions and usurping of my gifts."

"And the Nokias on your ass?" She quipped by reflex, then covered her mouth, still sitting on the edge of the bed.

"Yeah… the All Mighty's sense of humor I think." The apparition mused, examining one of the three cell phones in a tiny hand, "But that is not the point. These things are my fate. I must pull them with me through this mortal coil for all eternity, forced to see others move on in their lives, unable to affect anything myself."

"And your point would be…" She waved her hand at her flighty, but still dead employer.

"Pay Attention." The blue skinned businessman snorted at her irritably, "My cruelty and selfishness in life has doomed me to this lonesome fate. I've come to try to spare you worse."

"Assuming you're not just a bad bit of kosher beef from Stoppable's lunch this afternoon, how do you propose to do that?" She snorted and rose to her feet, tossing the spent Ruger onto the nightstand.

"By warning you. Your chains are already well forged, Shego, your bindings well under way, and they will be more burdensome than mine."

The specter snapped his fingers, and Deborah suddenly collapsed onto the bed, her long body weighted down under what seemed to be yards of anchor chain and a pile of surplus electronic devices. With a grunt, she tried to force herself upright, only to find her hand slipping out from under her on a computer mouse. She gave the apparition a dirty look and sniffed indignantly.

With another snap of his fingers, the chains and devices were gone, and the business woman let out a sigh as the burden evaporated.

"So, Drew, does the snapping help?" She grumbled as she rubbed her suddenly strained shoulders. "And stop calling me Shego… You know I hate that. I stopped being that girl a long time ago."

The cerulean spirit sniffed and shook his head, "Which was when your path to this damnation began. Ah… speaking of which… I suppose I should get down to business."

The pale woman rolled her eyes as the dead tycoon retrieved one of the spectral devices and tapped at it. He began again after a moment of perusing it. "Ah yes… here it is. Tonight, She… erm Miss Horowitz, you will be visited by three spirits. At the tolling of each hour they shall show you the errors of your ways and hopefully teach you to avoid my fate. Only by changing your ways and mending your heart can you begin to unmake those burdens."

"Ya know… much as I appreciate your little bit of Pro Bono work here, Boss… Tonight really sucks for me. Could we set up a meeting? After the first of the year? I could have Mister Stoppable get back to y-," With a grunt and a jerk, Deborah found herself again lying on the bed, beset by spiritual restraints, and barely able to breath this time at the weight of power cords, chains, and electronic devices.

"This is not a matter for debate or delay Shego. You have one hour to prepare yourself." The figure of Lipsky turned and set for the door. He turned back one last time, his face full of grave seriousness, "Heed the spirits guidance, Shego… it's the last chance you'll get."

With a grunt, Miss Horowitz was again freed of the ephemeral burden the Spirit had inflicted on her. She turned to look at the door, even as her own ePhone chimed and vibrated across the nightstand. She blinked and looked down at it as it self-dialed a number she'd not even looked at in years.

"_Hey, this is Kim. I'm probably elbow deep in exploration at the moment, so leave a message and I'll get back to you when I've got reception. __**BEEP**__."_

The call had rung straight to voicemail, and the elegant woman found herself ranting to her phone without even thinking, wishing desperately for the familiar chipper voice that was supposed to be on the other end of the line.

"Kimmie, it's Debbie… Erm I uh… Something's happened, something weird." She looked to the massive oaken door, only to find the nine splintered holes and shattered shellac absent, replaced by the worn smooth façade of the sturdy door once again.

"Or maybe not… I don't know… Look. I just… You know what… forget it. I don't know why or how I even called this number."

She scowled and hit the red end button on the expensive device, tossing it next to the still-spent pistol on the rattled nightstand. It read; "_call ended, Doctor Possible, time, thirty seven seconds."_

With a glare at the healed door, the broker collapsed back into her luxurious bed. She sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose. After a few minutes, rubbing the pressure points she had learned from a certain redhead, she drifted off to a deep slumber atop the bed, still clothed in her business regalia and returning to the dark embrace of unconsciousness.

- - - - - -

The ringing of her mechanical alarm clock stirred the irritated woman from her sleep, and she scowled at it from her off-kilter position across the bed. She didn't remember the little clockwork timepiece ringing so deeply before, more like a church bell than a tin alarm bell. She picked it up, wondering what was causing the dysfunction, and was more than a little shocked to find that it was not, in fact, ringing. She also expected it to register five AM. It now read one.

Flinging the unmanageable antique away, she rolled out of bed, just in time to remember the vision of the last hour. She quickly glanced to the oaken nightstand, and found it still held her phone and pistol. Shaking her head, she noted that the phone was signaling a message on its flat screen. She was about to reach for it when the oaken doorway exploded inwards.

Deborah barely had time to shield her eyes as splinters showered her body and the bed. A brilliant beam from a flashlight was shown in her face a second later, and she growled, igniting her hands at the challenge.

"Ya'll ain't even got a coat on yet?! Jeeze, an' here I thought ole Mister Lipsky was supposed ta prepare ya!" the figure beyond the beam of the flashlight began with obvious consternation.

Miss Horowitz scowled and as the light was lowered, she looked at the intruder, standing amongst the remains of her bedroom door. She… Deborah thought it was a she despite the lack of feminine curves, stood about a head shorter. She seemed young in body and stance, yet the skin of her freckled face was also weathered and aged beyond all apparent years, leathery and drawn.

She wore clothes of a western style… but old west, not modern. Despite this, clipped to her belt was a mobile phone and some kind of gun-like device with a spool attached to the side. Her hair was short, barely to the shoulders, and a mixture of young auburn and octogenarian silver that defied any further description.

Deborah was startled out of her consideration as the figure spoke again, "Well, come on then! We ain't got all night."

"Oh, an I'm that there Spirit of Christmases Past." She, if it was indeed a girl, continued as she turned and shone her bizarrely powerful flashlight against the wall of the bedroom. "Now, stick close, these trips can be kinna disorientating."

"Through the wall? I think you've been out on the range there a bit too long, Tex." Deboeah shot back, disbelief giving way to irritation.

"Hush up an come along!" the Spirit gripped her by the wrist and dragged her right at the wall.

They passed smoothly through the area illuminated by the flashlight, which oddly, did not contract even as the light was carried nearer it. They passed through the plaster and woodwork, and Dedorah found herself on the other side; but not the other side of her wall. She now stood on the other side of town, outside the Go City Orphanage, a place she knew well.

A bit more confusing, it was sometime in the morning now, and she saw, but could not feel, the sun at her back. "Ooooohkay… So Spirit, why is it we're suddenly across town?"

"An time… Lookey." The lithe, androgynous western ghost pointed to the door. "It's Christmas day, nineteen an eighty nine.

Miss Horowitz looked to where she was pointed, and blinked. Coming out the door was a gaggle of a family all right. Two twin redheaded boys of maybe four erupted from the doors first, pushing with all their tiny might. A slender boy slightly older, with purple black hair in a rat tail, and a hefty looking boy of maybe fifteen both came bounding out directly behind them.

"Yay!" screamed the twins in unison, "Sissy gets come home with us!!!!"

Emerging from the door, and wincing at the shrill yell, was a slender girl of nine, her hair drawn back in a pony tail which exposed her pale, almost-but-not-quite-green skin tone to the winter-time sun. She wrapped an emerald scarf loosely around herself, and looked up to the portly woman coming out beside her.

"Holy shit! Is that me?!" the tall woman boggled at the scene as the woman who would become her adoptive mother yanked a black watchcap down on top of her younger self's head before adjusting her scarf.

The heavy-set woman, Fran Horowitz, smiled and patted her on the head. The girl yanked the hat off, and loosened her scarf as well, whining faintly, "It's too hot!"

"Now now Debbie…" The jolly woman chided her, smiling, "It's winter in Go City… no time to run around without a hat."

"Yeah, Shego…" the boy with the rat tail sneered, "Too cold, even for you!"

Fran chuckled softly and shook her head at the siblings, bustling everyone off towards her station wagon. Deborah found herself jerked along again, and resisted when the spirit put her hand on the handle of the back door.

"Hey! I don't think so! Besides… won't they notice two grown women, er people… suddenly piling in with them?"

"Have they yet?" the duster-clad specter grinned and pointed as one of the twin redheads walked right through her lanky body. "They canna see or hear us. So git your green butt in there!"

With a shove Deborah found herself sprawled in the back seat. The old station wagon seemed much smaller now than she remembered, almost cramped rather than cavernous. She also found it odd that no one noticed she and the cow… girl? …sitting in the back seat. The twins and Melvin were in the middle bench, and Deborah the adult was sitting next to Harold on the back bench while her younger self was in the front with Fran, peering through the windshield.

The spirit hummed some annoying tune from the other side of the unknowing Harold as they drove to what would become little "Shego's" home. Deborah tried to ignore the annoying sound, and instead listened to the chatter of the child-selves of her siblings.

With the beam of her flashlight, "Tex" led Deborah out the wall of the station wagon, glass and all when it came to a stop. The elegant woman found herself not standing outside the car as the kids piled out, but instead, inside the house. She looked around confusedly, and then to the stairs. She saw herself coming down the stairs, but a few years older than she had been in the station wagon. She was peeling off her black mask while talking to the girl who had become her best friend over the intervening years.

"I hate this stupid mask! Like anyone is fooled that the green skinned girl at PS 42 _**ISN'T**_ Shego!" She grumbled audibly as she threw the mask away from herself to the hallway table.

"But it makes you look so cool, Debbie! And really, it works for Clark Trent on the TV you know…" a skinny redhead pointed out as they crossed in front of the ghostly pair. She was covered in freckles and braces filled her mouth, making her words slurr slightly as she kept pace with the taller teen.

"Yeah yeah... Look, Ron knows. And you didn't even tell him!" young Debbie countered as she tugged her boots off next to the decorated fire place. "Stupid public service! I don't have any money for presents this year cause I can't do this and keep a job!"

"I don't need a present! What would I do with another barrette or a slammer pog?" the redhead complained, "Now, if you could get me tickets to that Egypt exhibit in Middleton."

Deborah the elder chuckled, remembering the little redhead's knowledge-lust, even at this early age. "And anyone doubted she was going to grow up to be Indiana Jones…?"

"As if! Like I can fly that jet without Harold or Fran around, even if I could get tickets! Otherwise I would, you know that, right Kimmie?" She peeled out her wallet from the costume they all wore doing public good work. The wallet contained two cash dollars; which she was holding on to for dear life. "Like I could even afford to take us to the dollar theater anyway, let alone that museum of yours."

The redhead suddenly clutched her taller friend around the neck in a big bear hug, "No one should call you the Grinch! I know you're nice if you can be!"

Deborah found herself being dragged along by the arm again, just as she was starting to sink into the scene and remember how nice it felt to offer someone something out of the goodness of her heart rather than out of contractual obligation.

"Hey!" She complained and was dragged through yet another wall.

- - - - - -

_**AN:**__ I'm afraid this story is going to have to take the place of my planned holiday story "The Twelve 'Sitches of Christmas" this year. I just don't have a tale that long in me right now. Meanwhile, please enjoy the upcoming, expanded chapters. The first two didn't need much, but Christmas Present and Christmas Future could really use more fleshing out and that is what they will get over the next two weeks. Note also that these chapters appear on KP Slash Haven DOT net a few days before they do here, if you want a sneak preview or discussion : )  
_


	3. Chapter 3

_**A Kigo Carol**_

_By Eoraptor_

_AN: Kim Possible to Disney, "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens. Inspired by a challenge on KP Slash Haven. Rated "T" __**PLEASE LEAVE REVIEWS?**_

---

Deborah growled at being yanked out of the scene just as she was beginning to enjoy the presence of her quirky teenage self. She shook her hand out of a gloved grasp and glared at the cowgirl Spirit. She was about to give the androgynous specter a piece of her mind when she registered what year they had now come to by a telltale set of keys and an envelope sitting on the hallway stand.

"No… Not here… not this Christmas…" She whispered, suddenly hoarse.

Too late came the plea. Despite passing through the wall, they were again in the entry of the Horowitz house which they had just left in the previous, playful year. Now down the stairs came the younger-but-now-older Debbie, clad in a very nice dark green dress which showed off her nineteen year old body without being overtly sexy.

She was followed by Kimmie, wearing a red Mrs. Clause costume of the sexier variety. She gesticulated frustratedly, and was clearly agitated if the blush spreading across her cheeks and down her neck was any indicator. Her heels clacked on the wood steps as she followed Debbie, who was strutting down the stairwell stiffly.

"Will you just listen to me?!" She was apparently continuing, "It's only two years! And I'll be home in the summer! I don't even have to go till next fall anyways!"

The elder Deborah winced at the words she knew were to come and grit her teeth. She didn't need to see this tirade, after all, she had started it herself. She wheeled on the Spirit and scowled, gritting her teeth as fire licked at her knuckles, "Why the hell show me this?!"

"Ya'll need to hush up and listen." The slender guide pointed back to the pair, who were crossing the hallway before them now.

"You couldn't have told me this… I dunno… like two months ago? Before…. Anything?!" the taller, faintly emerald woman sneered when she finally wheeled on the shorter redhead, abandoning her chilly air of indifference.

The ginger girl in the crimson Clause outfit had grown substantially in the minutes since the last year they had visited. Gone was the skinny, freckled, bespectacled girl with a brace face and speech imperfection. She'd been replaced by a rambunctious and attractive young scholar with a permanent peach sun tan from adventuring and a hard fire in her emerald eyes that had seduced Debbie one hot summer day a year before.

"I didn't know I was even a candidate! Shego! Debbie! They only give thirty of these to Americans a year! And not even a quarter of those go to women! It's a freaking Rhodes Scholarship!" the redhead pled, holding out the elegant parchment paper of acceptance to her girlfriend like the golden ticket it was.

"Bah! Stuff that Kimmie! I thought we both agreed we were going to blow out of Go City and study in California!? Together! So you could explore the forest and the coast and I could enjoy a winter that didn't see me knee deep in thugs and grant applications and snow! We talked about this all!" the faintly pistachio teenager's cheeks had colored with anger, and her eyes, as always, matched Kim's, now burning with indignation.

"Debbie!" Kim whined and clutched the parchment to her breast, her leafy green eyes downcast a moment, "I can't just throw away a chance like this! It's Oxford! A full ride! I could be Doctor Possible in three years!"

"And where does that leave me, huh Kim?!" the girl shouted, and her spectral adult version nodded in agreement with the sentiment, knowing what was coming next, "While you tour around Southern England and the continent, where does that leave me?! Fran's already gone, and I am NOT staying around to hand hold my idiot brothers. You _KNOW_ that. Taking care of them is what put the woman in an early grave when she should have been taking care of herself, and I am NOT following in that path!"

"Debbie!" Kim gasped again and stared at her girlfriend in shock, the parchment crinkling in her fingers, "It's not about you! I don't want to leave you behind! Never! But if you're going to make this all about you? Then fine!"

With a stamp of her heeled foot, Kim wheeled and stormed out into the night, not so much as a coat to protect her from the bitter wind coming off of Lake Go. Deborah watched her younger self shed a single tear before turning in the opposite direction.

She wheeled on the Spirit again, a similar, but more angry tear on her cheek, "I've seen enough of this! Give me that damned flashlight you little...!"

She grabbed the spectral torch from the cowgirl-clad ghost and smashed it on the table of the entryway. The scene faded away into blackness for the adult Deborah Horowitz, but time itself never stopped moving. Outside, in a fog of hurt and anger, a girl drove down the driveway. Through the smear of tears, she never saw the drunken holiday reveler coming, not until he smashed into the driver's side of her car.

- - - - - -

With a start, Deborah awoke in her own bed. She groaned and looked at her hand, which should have been clutching the shattered flashlight of the Spirit. Instead, it was empty. She was tempted to believe it a dream, again.

Until the alarm clock she had flung away from herself previously was noted to be again on her nightstand, along with the pistol and the ePhone. Both clock and phone read five minutes until two. With a sigh, Miss Horowitz picked up the phone, noting its blinking blue envelope icon. She called her voicemail and listened. Her stomach turned flips when she heard a warm, but confused voice on the other end.

"_Debbie? Um… Yeah, it's Kim. I got your call… is everything all right? We haven't talked in ten years, and suddenly you're calling me on, well… Christmas day here in Sydney, but yeah. Look, I was just about to get on a plane anyways, do you want me to… You and Ron still work in the same office right? Look, I'll stop by if you want, Um…. Yeah… Awkweird. Look, if this is just you being drunk and lonely or something, call me in the morning and let me know before my flight gets in and I won't. I think we can at least do each other that cour-,"_

Deborah's attention was drawn away from Kim's waffling voice on the message by a light glaring under the once-again healed door to her bedroom. She meandered to it and pressed her ear to the magically restored wood. From the other side she heard… Christmas music?

Tentatively, she opened the heavy door and looked into her living room transformed. All around the cavernous living room of the condo were children's toys. Mostly stuffed furry creatures of fantasy, but scattered around were more classical items. A toy train ran past her feet, and she nearly tripped over a Jack-in-the-box as she stumbled out of her bedroom.

At the center of the festivus sat a jolly, rotund woman. She sat astride a throne made of plush and was playing with a particularly homely little creation with the body of a panda bear, and the ears and tail of what might be a wallaby. She was a homely sort herself, with black, oily hair, and freckles on her apparently middle aged cheeks. When she spoke, her gap-teeth became apparent as well, and light from a which fireplace Deborah didn't own reflected in her nebbish glasses.

"Oh! There you are sweety!" the portly Spirit smiled her gap-toothed smile at her. "Well, Come along then! Much to do and all that!"

The heavy set specter tugged a gaudy pink coat around herself, some sort of mutant sea mammal embroidered on it, and tugged at Deborah's aggrieved hand. The stock broker was tugged right through the massive window that over-looked Lake Go from the tenth story.

It wasn't until she was done screaming in abject terror that she realized that they were flying.

The hefty Spirit pointed to the rising sun and giggled, chirping her words out, "So, here we are!"

Looking down, Deborah recognized the small, but tidy suburban ranch of the Stoppables passing beneath. She and the Spirit took a heart-swallowing dive right at the front of the house through the bite of the morning air. Once lofted through the bay window of the smallish house, she was set down before a…

"Christmas tree?" The business woman blinked in confusion. It wasn't until she turned and found the Menorah on the mantle of a cardboard fireplace set that she felt slightly less befuddled.

"Oh yes Deary! Mixed household you know!" The corpulent specter giggled and clapped her hands. She then pointed to the front door as it sprung open, the decorations jingling.

Ron stepped in, and looked up. He grinned and pumped his fist… "Ah Booyah! Mistle Toe, Tara!"

His wife, a dainty thing of platinum hair and sapphire eyes, smiled and pecked him on the lips. "Merry Christmas Ronnie."

"Me too daddy! Me too!" cried a small voice that was, as yet, invisible. It was very enthusiastic, though.

"Of course, how could I forget my other favorite lady!?"

Ron hefted an even daintier child with impossibly blonde hair and impossibly big chocolate colored eyes up, and gave her a kiss on the cheek. The spectral Deborah felt the warmth of the scene despite her sour mood.

Frowning when Ron sat his daughter down, Miss Horowitz caught sight of the plastic hospital bracelet still clinging to her thin wrist. She turned to the Spirit and inclined her head in an unasked question.

"One day home visitation, sweety poo." She frowned, some of the cheer leaving her voice, "But at least she was allowed to come home."

Deborah pursed her lips, but nodded. She signed the policy for the insurance that kept poor little Tiffany in that hospital rather than with a nurse at home. It saved money for She Go Brokerage, but suddenly found herself wondering if that was the important thing.

The Spirit guided her through the house to the kitchen. If the business woman had not already seen the previous Spirit bend the laws of time and space, she would have wondered how the gracile woman had shed her coat and hat, and prepared a turkey dinner in the span of just a few seconds…

It was a sad looking bird, and though it smelled like turkey to Deborah's now-spectral nose, it was smaller than some chickens she had seen. Still, there were trimmings enough to fill the plates of the three family members, though not much more. It made the woman from a full and raucous family with holidays of the same nature wince to see so little.

"Grrrr… That rotten old Grinch!" the wife growled away from her daughter at the sink, "She wants you back there tomorrow?! It's only one day till the weekend! She can't give us that little bit, Ronnie? Can't she?"

Ron kissed Tara on the cheek and sighed, "I know… but her words, not mine. And we need the money. Tiff's medical expenses are just getting worse, and you know the insurance doesn't cover everything. Look, the new year is coming up, maybe I can get some time for the three of us away from the house and the hospital…"

"Acky hospital!" the impossibly tiny girl pouted in her chair, playing with the remains of a few candied yams. "I don't wanna go back…"

The unseen employer of the Stoppables frowned, as if the specter of her presence alone was souring the family's lone meal together. Passing through the wall once more, Deborah watched the group gather around the small tree in the living room after a few heavy minutes during which the parents considered their besieged daughters complaint. They shuffled past and through her and settled in front of the holiday symbols assembled in the cramped living room.

"God bless all of those who have helped us this year," Ron began as he stood before the cardboard fireplace, "Bless the doctors who watch over our treasure, and guide their hand over her."

Tara continued, glancing at their small child, "And bless all the people who couldn't be with us this year and keep them safe as they travel for their jobs."

Deborah felt the venom in the normally jovial blonde woman's words as she said 'job,' and winced.

"And God bless Miss Horowitz for helping daddy make all his money!"

"What a precious little soul." The pudgy Spirit chirped beside the broker, clapping her hands. After a moment, her face faltered, "A shame about her health, I'm afraid this will be their last holiday together."

"What?!" Deborah yelped, her eyes shooting concernedly towards tiny Tiffany before she spun on the corpulent Holiday Specter.

The Spirit was already taking her by the hand, however, and once again they were out the window. The passenger of the flight looked up, to watch the sun proceed with supernatural alacrity across the sky. As it settled towards an evening position, Deborah was drawn downwards towards a rather bedraggled looking building.

Ghosting through a heavily barred window, she was set down in front of a tall, but spindly artificial tree which had obviously seen several years use. Gathered around it were several women and more than a few children, all singing along to an old vinyl holiday album.

Most of the women had bags of exhaustion beneath their eyes, though in two cases, Miss Horowitz was not so certain they were sleepy-bags at all. All their faces held weary smiles, and even the children, though of a happier disposition, seemed slightly subdued.

She yelped as one of her red-haired brothers passed through her body and into the room with a plate of cookies.

"Here we are guys and gals!" He smiled and held out the tray artfully balanced on one hand.

She recognized the cookies on the tray as the kind bought at a supermarket, and she estimated there was just enough for one each for the children and their mothers. Frowning, she was about to redress her brother's stinginess when her 'big' brother Harold entered, arms loaded down with boxes and bags, a Santa hat perched too-small atop his head.

"Presents for all!" He called with a deep voice as he was mobbed by the kids.

Deborah frowned, because one of the boys moved with a suspicious limp, and she was realizing that this was _not _a family home. This must be that benighted shelter her youngest brothers had been pandering for earlier. She felt a leaden weight in her belly suddenly as she looked at the sheer number of women who had to spend a holiday in a place like this with their children. It wasn't dirty by any means… but the building was old, and she could tell by the lone old computer sitting on one utilitarian desk in the corner that not much recommended it as anything other than a place of survival and sanctuary.

It was definitely not a home.

She watched as the children opened their presents. Inside were mostly clothes, and simple toys, mainly of the dollar store variety, cheap plastic tchotchkes in overly bright cardboard. She moved to where the other of her twin brothers was speaking with one of the mothers, one of the two with the "very heavy" bags under her eyes.

"I'm sorry we couldn't do more." He was pleading, looking towards the limping boy as he held up a generic action figure and grinned broadly, "But donations were stiff this year. And since we can't just bring people to the shelter and show them what we're dealing with, cause of the safe haven rules about non-disclosure and all, a lot of people just don't understand."

Deborah winced. This was a usage of non-disclosure with a weight behind it that made multi-million dollar deals seem cheap and tawdry by comparison. She shot the Spirit a look, but the jolly nebbish woman seemed tired and distracted, and was watching the children playing with the off-brand dolls and action figures.

The mother was patting him on the shoulder and shaking her head when the business maven turned back, "Even this is so much! Johnny hasn't had new clothes all year! Sometimes simple is best."

Deborah saw it to be true… the eight year old boy's pants came high on his ankles, and his shirt sleeves were of the same slightly tight arrangement, allowing her to see a purple bruise that was ugly both in appearance and in intent, on his left arm. She chewed her lip and frowned hotly, just in time for Harold to come over.

"Well, maybe if we could get sis to come down here…" He groused, making a slightly sour face. The aforementioned woman winced, because she could see he was struggling not to outright scowl. "She has so much that she could give, perhaps one day she will…"

Deborah remembered, morosely now, her offer of only firearms and vengeance the previous day. Suddenly a hand gun and a jail sentence seemed to be the last thing these already-broken families needed.

"Ah, forget that Grinch!" came a sneered retort from the kitchen. Her purple-headed brother, still wearing his hair long, leaned out form where he was apparently cooking some kind of holiday meal for the assembled group, "We hit her up five times this year, she wouldn't give us the time of day, let alone a donation!"

"Hey! I was gonna give! Honest!" She protested, though none but the ghost of Christmas Present could hear her. The Spirit seemed to be paying more attention now and tsked at her through her gap teeth.

"Let's be honest sweetypoo?" The heavy Spirit tsked again wearily, and Debora noted that a few wrinkles, perhaps of concern had appeared at her eyes and lips. "Well deary, we must be off again!"

Miss Horowitz was hauled out, albeit more slowly, through the barred window, and out across the city. The Spirit ducked and dove occasionally, leaving them to peer into windows, and twice onto the street itself to look upon the homeless, all of whom were celebrating the day in whatever manner they could with whomever was important to them.

She was finally set down again, this time in her own penthouse, deep into the night. Alighting within the empty ten story building, the Spirit, Deborah now noted, was not just concerned, she was markedly aged. Her hair had gone white and her weight shed away considerably, leaving her looking elderly and spent.

"I'm afraid my time is up my dear… I must depart this mortal coil…" the specter bemoaned, breathing a bit heavily.

Deborah doubted she meant the departure in any Spiritual manner, she seemed destine for the grave... again…

"But before I go, I must leave these two with you…" The formerly rotund ghost retrieved two toys from the rapidly dwindling pile that had formerly filled the living room to bursting. They were hideous specimens of plush, covered in horns and scales, and cast in muddy, ugly colors. Their eyes were mal-aligned and their seems were crooked, despite the careful craftsmanship of the creations.

"Meet Ignorance, and Want." The ghost handed over one, and then the other. "They are the source of many ills in this world… and Ignorance is the more fearsome of the pair, sweetness. Keep that in mind if you find a place to put them."

With that, Miss Horowitz watched as the aged Spirit of Christmas Present faded away into nothingness, leaving her along in the dark and empty penthouse.

- - - - - -

_AN: So we come to the end of Chapter Three fleshed out. More is to come as Deborah faces her third and very final Spirit. _**Read, Review, **and** Recommend**_ Please!_


	4. Chapter 4

_**A Kigo Carol**_

_By Eoraptor_

_AN: Kim Possible belongs to Disney, "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens. I own nothing involved here save for my laptop, the name "Debbie Horowitz," and some grammar and original names._

_Second edition (or director's cut if you prefer) of my "Christmas Carol" Kim Possible kigo fiction from 2008_

- - - - - -

Deborah was about to retreat to her bedroom when she heard a sharp "rap rap rap." Looking around, she couldn't find the source. She went to her door, but no one was in evidence through the peep hole, and no shadows danced beneath the portal. Her eyes went to the bedroom, but she found its door once again intact and closed.

She heard what seemed like a tiny throat clearing, and the tapping again. Turning, she saw that the ghost of Christmas Present had left behind her fireplace, and astride the mantle was Death. Well, it seemed like Death.

She had always believed that the specter of the grim reaper would be… well… taller. The Spirit was definitely fearsome in appearance; his great black cloak was woven of a course cloth with faint fraying at the folds and edges, as if he had labored with the corpses of the dead many eons whilst wearing it. Clinging to his form were various smears and cobwebs, again bespeaking a gruesome pastime. A heavy bronze hourglass dangled from a hangman's noose around his waist and a scross was rolled up and half-placed within one pocket.

The disconcerting thing was that this grim Spirit of Christmases Yet to Come was all of eight inches tall. He clutched a miniature scythe in hands which bore wicked claws, and his face, or skull perhaps, was hidden in the deep shadow of his hood, save for a set of gleaming white incisors that glinted out occasionally as he rapped his scythe again on the mantle of the spectral fireplace.

If she weren't a little disturbed by the presence of massive teeth, claws, and a very functional looking, if letter opener sized reaping implement, Deborah would have laughed out loud. Still, she couldn't help but smirk a bit. "Oh, this is too rich… you're here to show me future holidays, yeah?"

The hooded figure gave a grim nod and then pointed to Miss Horowitz's bedroom door with his scimitar. The business woman shrugged, and strode to the door. On opening it, she found not her bedroom, but the greatroom of some expensive manor house. It was decorated with heavily perfumed flowers on end tables and a few fine antique chairs.

Leaning back out of the doorway, Deborah spied the walls of her own living room. "Huh… neater trick than the flashlight and the windows."

Stepping through, she looked around the large open space with some curiosity, since this specter had given her no guidance yet. She spied the Stoppables, well, the parents at least, gathered in one corner. She saw no one else, so she made her way over to them to see what the stich was.

Deborah shook her head, Ron was wearing a goatee of blonde and gray. It looked good on him, but the worn look in his eyes ruined the impression of maturity the beard lent. Beside him, his wife Tara also wore silver in her flaxen hair, and one look at her eyes showed Shego they saw nothing, having a milky quality where once they had been sapphires.

The two seemed to have just finished speaking, and she was unsurprised when they passed right through her. Turning, she followed them out of the greatroom and perked an ear as Ron spoke again.

"So, she's finally gone…" The blonde man sniffed a touch. "Can't say it wasn't a long time coming, considering how sick she was. But at least it's all over now."

The elegant woman looked about, and realized this manor house must be a funeral home, since soft soothing music was playing quietly in the hallway. She looked around, and caught sight of the Spirit standing atop a chair midway along the hall. "Hey, short stack, whose funeral? Oh… I know, Must be Tiffany. Well, I guess she lived longer than that last ghost thought. That's… good, right?"

The grim specter gave her no response other than to motion her along with the scythe. With a snort, she followed the pair as they walked down the hallway. She trailed them as they passed through a doorway, but they had disappeared when she came through. She found instead, her brothers, picking through a cardboard box atop a simple steel table in some kind of service room.

"Gee, didn't have much in the way of personal effects, did she?" Her long haired brother bemoaned as he picked through the box.

"This is just the stuff that the housing staff didn't take, and the stuff the state didn't confiscate for taxes." Massive Harold went on, picking out an ear ring and considering it. "Won't sell for much, I'm afraid, which is why it's still here."

The twins shook their heads and set their handfuls back in the box as well,

"Wasn't even,"

"Worth coming down,"

"To this hole,"

"To retrieve."

They finished for each other. Deborah wondered whose things they were going through, perhaps one of those women from the shelter, though a tickle at the back of her brain said otherwise.

She watched her usually do-gooding brothers continue to pick through the cardboard box like ghouls, and frowned. It was not how she expected the Team Go organization to act at all. Even if they seemed older and more tired, like the Stoppables, this was pretty far out of the norm for them. She shivered outright as her brothers passed through her ghostly form with a tangible wave of cold.

Turning, she found the diminutive specter perched on a shelf, "Spirit. Are there more funerals going on? Why all these people I know gathered for strangers?"

The grim miniature specter merely shook its head beneath the hood and pointed towards the door. After a moment, he indicated with his scythe, tapping it on the shelf he sat astride for emphasis. It seemed to ring far more loudly that a six inch cookie cutter should.

She shrugged and sighed "All right all right, I'm goin… Gee, you'd think for funerals, people would be more… I dunno, sad or some junk. These creeps are just indifferent."

Passing through the door, she found herself not back in the hall, but in a chapel. She looked around and found that this was, indeed, a funeral. Yet, it was a sad and depressing one. Looking around, the preacher droned on with religious sentiment he obviously felt, but no one sat in the pews.

No, scratch that. One person sat off to one side. A woman clad all in black, including a lacey veil across her eyes. Miss Horowitz was about to move closer, to see who it was, when a chill ran up her spine. As the mourner, the only mourner in the entire large chapel, dabbed beneath the veil, she revealed a spray of red hair.

The spectral business woman wheeled, looking for the pint-sized reaper and his damnable scythe. She found him perched, of all places, on the pulpit, standing right in front of the preacher.

She stormed towards the miniature spook, but slowed, realizing this also brought her closer to the casket and its apparently ignored occupant. Her anger quickly gave way to trepidation as she recognized the glossy black casket was set 'round its rim with green stones. "Spirit… who's funeral is this…?"

The cloaked figure shook his head beneath the shadowy hood and gestured to the casket. Deborah shivered violently and backed away a step, not willing to see for herself the corpse within. She heard movement behind her, and saw the redhead of mystery moving up to the casket, forming, by herself, an imaginary line of mourners. She passed by the ethereal woman and looked down into the casket as it was opened for her by the preacher. With a sad shake of her head, she moved along, thanking him with some hollow words.

Ignoring the words in their familiar voice, empty though those words were, she followed in the wake of the lone mourner. She looked into the casket before the lid was sealed back up, and recoiled in horror. For there, within the sleek black coffin with a satin green lining, was herself. She looked hideously made up, as though the embalmer couldn't be bothered to make the corpse look human. Thick green eye shadow and black lipstick attempted to hide sunken features on a withered and embittered face, and her hair had gone all white save for a single black streak that looked shocking and harsh against the deceased's features.

Flailing backwards, the ghostly woman screamed in abject terror for the first time in her life that she could recall. She wheeled to the lectern and grabbed the miniature cloak of the Spirit, pleading with her eyes as her voice trembled.

"This is me?! My fate is to die all alone?! My brothers picking through my possessions like ghouls, the Stoppables practically toasting my demise?! Only one person to attend my death, and she came out of duty and nothing else?!!!! Spirit Answer Me!"

The petite specter nodded and clacked his scythe on the pulpit with a disproportionately loud slam.

"_IS_ there _**any**_ way I can change this?! Make it not happen?! Keep Tiffany from Dying?! Keep myself from becoming this pariah?! Change it at all?! Yes, that's it! That's it! I'll change! I'll be better!" Deborah pled.

The Spirit clacked his scythe on the lectern with a thunderous slam again and shook his head, large buck teeth gleaming beneath the hood; and Deborah found herself inside the casket. She was still and terrified for a long moment, the only sound her shuddering breaths. Then she heard sounds, the tumbling of something above. It was dirt! They were burying her! They were going to bury her alive!

She pounded on the lid of the casket. She wasn't dead yet! Not ready to be buried! She pounded with all her considerable strength. She started shredding the liner, down to the bare metal, crying to be let out, slamming her whole body up against the sealed lid of the coffin. Igniting her hands, she flung heat and fire into the lid, screaming to be let out, screaming to the heavens that she would change!

- - - - - -

She exploded out of her bed onto the hardwood floor. Gasping and staring around in a hunted manner, it took Debbie a moment to gather that she was not trapped in a casket being covered in earth. The disheveled businesswoman extinguished her hands with only a little scorching of the hardwood, and stood up shakily, panting, clawing at her day-old clothes now to get the free of them, needing to breath.

Without thought to the nightstand she had used to gauge the previous night's passage of time, she threw open the door to her bedroom and exploded out into the living area. Gone was the fireplace, the toys, the twice destroyed bedroom door was again intact. She closed and reopened it, finding only her bedroom beyond and not a funeral parlor.

The sun was just breaking over Lake Go and blasting through the massive panes of glass, now as solid as ever. She charged to her massive wall-sized television and flicked it on. As always it tuned to a business channel, without a stock ticker for the holiday. _"…and in other news this Christmas morning…"_

"Christmas Morning?!" she whispered to no one but herself, "I'm Alive!!! I'm Free!!!"

Whooping and cheering, she charged to the bedroom. The pistol and the phone and the benighted alarm clock all still rested on the night stand, reminding her that the previous night was not a dream, so much as a portent. She had to change. Had to mend her callous ways this very day!

Debbie dashed to the bedroom and pulled on what clothes she could as quickly as possible, shedding away her previous day's business dress suit for something more casual, as she had not dressed in years. Owing to those, the jeans and green blouse were a bit stiff and tight, but she let that bother her not, instead dashing out to the elevator.

Quickly she was down to the ground floor of her building, and out into the street. The changed woman knew already what her first act must be. Slipping her ePhone into her handbag, careful to remember its late night call exchanges, she went right for the local deli. Thankfully, Go City was a modern metropolis, and had secular establishments that would be open even today.

Slipping inside, she called the attendant. She gave him the Stoppable's home address, as well as two one-hundred dollar bills. She then sat about picking out dinner, trimmings, and two great platters of cookies. Briefly, she pondered being playfully evil and sending a ham to the mixed residence, grinning wickedly to herself… But with a chuckle, she set that aside. She selected the fattest bird she could find that was precooked, a great TurDucHen, a chicken within a goose within a great turkey, and all baked together. Giving the man a third bill, she grinned, giving no name when asked, and exiting the store.

Clapping her hands together against the chill blowing in off the lake, she made her way immediately to the next stop on her rapidly forming mental itinerary. She took the second of the two platters of cookies with her and went to get a truck.

An hour or so later, honking and raising great fanfare, Deborah arrived at an older house on the inner edge of the city proper, pulling into its drive and leaping from the cab as the driver set to opening the gate of the massive van. It was an old brick manner, but its ornate shutters had been replaced with hardened iron bars. She technically shouldn't even know the place was anything special, but she owed her knowledge to a higher power.

She bounded up the old concrete stairs and banged on the heavy metal door with all force. It took several minutes, but finally, a face appeared at the high window. Only one face could peer that highly, and she grinned up at her brother Harold.

The door was unbolted, an involved affair, and the man-mountain stared out at her in confusion, "Sis? Erm… What are…"

"Oh, get out of the way Hego, Let the man make his deliveries! And here, take these and give them to Bobby, or is it Billy handing out the treats?" She thrust the overloaded platter at the big man, and then brushed past him.

Inside, she found the group of women and children gathered about the bedraggled tree she had already known would be there. She picked up the thing, and with nary an effort owed to her unnatural powers, hurled it away. It was just as quickly replaced by a full, lovely, and pre-decorated tree by the delivery driver, a stout man she had found working the dock alone at the department center she had just raided. He was thrilled with his sudden Christmas bonus, and was all too eager to be of service when told where they were going and who they were to help.

She turned to the mother with the most darkened eyes, and her son Johnny, and smiled. She handed them a card and grinned, flicking some imagined dust from her lapel. "That happens to be the best Civil Prosecutor in three states. I'm most certain he'd be thrilled to take up the case of a boy who's not had a single set of new clothes in an entire year. Just let him know that Miss Horowitz… No. Tell him Shego said he owes her one."

Spinning back, leaving the confused woman holding the business card and stuttering, she clapped her hands and grinned, "Friends! This building is going to be demolished in a few weeks!"

There were gasps and shouts, even as her twin brothers were coming in to see what the commotion was and who had been let into the secure building.

"What?! You mean you're really going to burn the place down?!"

"You heartless Grinch! Why?!"

"Why of course I am! And if I could find the place with just any truck driver, it's hardly a place safe for women and children now is it?! Besides… I just happen to know of a perfectly suitable ten story building in the heart of down town that's just standing mostly vacant." She nodded with a grin and a twinkle in her eye, "Complete with a gated entrance, and easy access to schools, shopping, and in a quite secure neighborhood!"

She grinned as even her purple headed brother glanced out from the kitchen in shock. She spent the next few hours sorting out details with her do-gooding brothers and eating a meal with them and the residents of the shelter, even going so far as to make the mashed potaoes. She gave them the number of the contractor she knew would be all too happy to renovate the lower nine stories of her building for the new residents and then bid them farewell, making sure to tip the truck driver again as he hauled away the old derelict tree and now empty boxes of toys and children's clothes that had now been distributed.

Glancing at her ePhone, Deborah realized that she had just enough time to go to her office for her next appointment. Arriving, she unlocked the door, and had just shed her coat when the door chimed a second time behind her to admit someone on this miraculous holiday.

Turning, her voice seized in her throat just as she was about to bid her guest welcome. The redhead before her was a vision in holiday white, from her slacks to her coat. A loan blue scarf set off the otherwise pristine outfit, and Deborah simply stared.

"Ki- Kim- Kimmie…" She finally worked past her stone lips as she stared.

"Please, come in! Have a seat!" She blushed like the girl she had once been and finally, and literally, smacked herself into gear. She indicated the plush chair reserved for high-rolling clientele, and sat down on the edge of her desk. She bit her lower lip as the other woman strode across the office and eased herself down into the luxurious chair.

Deborah noticed it. Anyone else, those who had never seen Kim walk, would never have picked up on the faint limp and the tiny hiss of a gas cylinder as she moved. But the pale woman who sat across from her had known the younger Kim, the one who had owned two working legs and energy in spades and been an unstoppable force. She knew that Kimberly lacked a left leg now, severed mid-thigh just outside the Horowitz's front door that night a decade ago exactly.

After simply staring at the alabaster, cobalt, and ginger angel before her, she was startled by a clearing throat.

"I'm not here as a trophy to be looked at, Debbie. If that's all this was, I still need to go to my parents place, and swing by Ron's." Kim started to rise, only to find herself suddenly gripped in a monstrous hug that drove the breath from her chest.

She blushed despite herself, and cautiously returned it. Leaning back after a moment, she saw that the emerald eyes of her hugger were liquid, tears streaming in a way she hadn't seen since Debbie's beloved puppy had died fifteen years before.

"Kimmie! I'm so sorry! I was a horrible selfish bitch! Please _Please_ say you forgive me! Please tell me you won't come to my funeral!" She gripped the woman's hands tightly in her own, her lower lip trembling in a rather effective pout.

The redheaded archaeologist wasn't exactly sure how to respond to that. She'd never heard someone beg forgiveness and funerary abandonment in the same breath before. "Ooohkay… Maybe we should start again, because I'm confused and I don't think its jetlag."

Stepping back, she held out her hand, albeit it nervously, "I'm Doctor Possible… and you are? Because I sure as heck don't recognize you…"

Deborah winced slightly, but that faded as she saw the warm smile in the eyes of the shorter woman. She extended her hand and shook Kim's, before yanking her into another hug, fiercely holding on to the smaller woman, "And I'm Debbie Horowitz, recovering Grinch."

- - - - - -

Miss Horowitz sat in her office on Friday morning, trying to beat the inane grin off of her face. The Kimmie had promised not to tell Ron that they had had dinner together, or had even seen one another on Christmas Day. She had also promised to try to have dinner again on New Year's Eve. The emerald woman knew it was going to be difficult, but she WOULD win the angel back. She had just finished ordering up two tickets to England for the first of the year, First Class, all the way. Hell, she had money, and it wasn't a sin to use, so long as she was using it for _someone else's_ happiness.

She heard the door chime, and grinned wickedly. The slender emerald-themed woman put on her bitch-on-wheels face and did her double damnedest to erase the goofy smile. Rising from her desk, she straightened her severe green business suit and stepped out of the office.

She looked pointedly at Mister Stoppable, and then at the clock. In a cool, clipped tone, "Explain."

She smirked a trademark smirk, even as he wilted under her gaze and whimpered.

"Miss Horowitz… I… uh… Uh...!" The blonde man stuttered and whimpered further, trying to slink to his desk.

He was about to explain when the door opened again, and a tiny blonde girl ran in. She giggled and leapt into her father's lap, squeezing him around the neck, "Daddy! Mommy said you forgot to take your lunch with you! Aunt Kim was going to bring it up, but I wanted to see you again before I had to go back to that acky hospital!"

Deborah couldn't maintain the stone balled bitch act any longer, not in the face of childlike adoration. She grabbed the little girl from her father, spinning her around as though she weighed nothing, which was close to the truth. "Oh! I don't think you'll have to go back to that nasty place. I hated hospitals too, you know! They made me stay in them all the time because of my skin."

She smiled as the tiny blonde giggled and touched her pistachio cheek, and then set her down on her father's desk. She grabbed up his desk phone and called up the insurance provider from the company. She paid for twenty four seven customer support after all. "Yes, this is Deborah Horowitz, Customer ID 7033472. Look, I want to arrange an in-home nurse for one of my employees. Yes I'm aware what that will do to my premiums."

She rolled her emerald eyes and covered the handset with her palm as the operator worked away, "Guess I'll just have to give your daddy a raise to cover it, huh kiddo?"

Tiny Tiff giggled and spun to hug her daddy tightly around the neck, cheering for no more hospital. Ron just looked on, dumbfounded. First a mysterious seven piece banquet had been delivered to his home on his lone day off, sparing his tasked wife trying to cook a meal; and now aliens had abducted his boss and replaced her with a pod person who was giving him his holiday wish for the sixth day of Chanukah.

"Yes… I know the firm, they'll do well. Here, my assistant, Mister Stoppable will give you all the details." She handed the phone to the befuddled man and grinned.

Bending over, Shego picked up the petite blonde girl again and descended from the office to the car on the street. She smiled and babbled the news to Kim and Tara, who were just staring at her from inside the Stoppable's serviceable old station wagon. One stared at her in bald faced disbelief, the other in barely hidden pride, her own emerald eyes shining. She bounced on the balls of her feet as she leaned in the car window.

"So, did I get it all right Squirt? No more hospital? Big raise for Daddy? Happy helper to make you feel better?" She flicked the girl's pony tail and waited for a response.

"No!" She pouted petulantly, her lower lip jutting out. She held up her little charm bracelet and twirled the six pointed star and the cross there, "You forgot one thing! God bless us everyone!"

And from that day forth, Deborah Shego Horowitz never again let the selfishness of her early life darken her heart. She kept the holidays, and the warnings of the Spirits in her heart always. And when the day for her funeral finally came, half of Go City attended and sent her off with warm words and gifts of charity in her name; all except Kimberly, her beloved wife of seventy years, who had promised one New Year's morning to always forgive her and to never go to her funeral.

_**END**_

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_AN: Thanks for reading the second edition of "A Kigo Carol." I appreciate all the feedback over this year, from all of my readers, no matter what their holiday beliefs may be, or how they mark the closing of the year. I hope you enjoyed this little tour through a holiday classic, with inspirations taken from so many different versions over the years._

_And for anyone who may have been unable to determine the identities of the holiday spirits… Jacob Marly was Drew "Doctor Draken" Lipsky, Shego/Scrooge's deceased business partner; The Spirit of Christmas Past was Jocelyn "Joss" Possible, an androgynous and ageless spirit; The Spirit of Christmas Present was "DNAmy" Amy Hall, a jolly and rotund soul full of the joy of the season; and the Spirit of Christmas's Yet to Come was Rufus, an unspeaking, fearsome portent of the future. All the spirits I tried to take from their original book incarnations in appearance and action. Shego's gun and the exploding door, of course, are drawn from the Bill Murray classic "Scrooged" and much of the rest is my own interpretation._

_Happy Holidays!_


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